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Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to Google. A pleasure to be here in the flesh. I watch you guys online all the time.

Really great show. It's slow, but you just never know where the plot's going.

We have asked our employees what questions they have. I'm going to give you the first question. This is an anonymous question.

So they ask the employee. You're not asking the employees.

They are. No, the questions have asked the employees. Employees have asked the questions. I'm simply going to check. So you've done nothing.

You've done nothing. I do nothing. That's correct.

You're just a titular figurehead. That is correct.

So the anonymous question from Michael Jones goes like this.

That sounds like an anonymous name, actually.

I don't understand the title, America Again, Rebecoming the Greatness That We Never Weren't. This is, of course, your new book, which is already the number 1 bestseller in the nation. Yes. Yes. Thank you.

America again suggests recreation. Rebecoming suggests recreation. The greatness we is clear. All of this is logical and fine, although obviously Yoda-esque. But then, case A, never were, was the impression that you were trying to create, would be a perfect conclusion.

But you added the apostrophe NT. Taken in toto, this would be a clever play on words, meaning once again becoming the country we hypothecate had built in myth or a fable. Is this not the title? Case B, never weren't, which is what you chose. Which means I'm not done yet, Steven.

STEVEN SCAIA,

JR.: I know. No, no. Go on. Go on, please. STEPHEN COLBERT,

MD, PhD, PhD, PhD, and PhD, PhD, PhD, which means we never were not and thus never have been. And thus the whole phrase is once again becoming the country we have always been. This is strictly logical, which you cannot become, which you're not at present." What do you say to this? Well, I say

to this, to Michael...

This is the hardest and toughest criticism of your title that I have ever

seen. Okay. So, Michael. Michael. Michael Jones.

Michael, the fool says in his heart there is no God, but by God he means that thing then which no greater thing can be conceived. But by conceiving of that thing, he automatically defines God as whatever he can greatest imagine. Therefore, God does exist because he has imagined that thing, which must be greater in reality than in his imagination."

I completely agree. All right.

Those of you who are not familiar with Saint Anselm's ontological argument, I'll boil it down for you again. America again, re-becoming the greatness we never weren't, has to be written this way. Because clearly our country's in trouble, yes? Okay. Okay.

You can tell because I am the country and I'm all beaten up on the cover here. We want to re-become the greatness, right? All right. But if I said we never were, then that would mean America was never great. Right?

ERIC SCHMIDT JR. Yes. But if I said that we presently aren't, that would mean I'm criticizing America, which you mustn't ever do. Therefore, it's America again, re-becoming the greatness we never weren't. Unless you've got something bad to say about America, Eric Schmidt.

Do you have something bad to say about America? Just let me know, because I'm sure all these people and YouTube would love to know what problem you've got with the US of A, mister, because I don't and I've proven it with a title that makes no sense.

But I thought You just convinced us that it did.

Now, I want to continue. The title is a paean to the Republican Convention, for instance. The Republican Convention said, America is great, and we mustn't listen to these people who criticize our country and do not think it's the greatest country in the world. And then in the next sentence, they would say, we must return to greatness. They would say it sometimes in the same breath.

It makes perfect

sense. American exceptionalism means the rules don't apply to us. But the feeling on the right is that we are losing the game of being a country. And so this was trying to capture both of those feelings. There's a dichotomy.

There's a cognitive dissonance that constantly exists on the right. And even more strongly now, that we must return to a greatness that we presently have. Yes.

Now, I want to explore. Did anyone recognize?

Did anyone recognize? I'm sorry. I'm stopping you in the middle of asking me a question. But it's Google, and there are no rules. I've been told I have to keep my pants on, but that's it.

And that he will enforce it strictly. He will enforce it strictly. Did anyone recognize Stan Anselm's argument for the ontological existence of God? Yes, you did? Move to the head of the class where you already are.

He actually used Google. You pretty much ran for president and raised a super PAC and so forth.

Yeah, I did absolutely have a super PAC. And I kind of ran for president. I ran as much for president as I wanted to avoid violating federal law.

OK. Good answer. Good lawyer. Now, Jim DeMint has just announced.

Jim DeMint, yes. He's just announced. Jim's a friend, but go ahead.

He's just announced that he's retiring. And it occurs to me that you might want to, you're from South Carolina originally, I think.

Yes, I am. I'm from South Carolina,

the Palmetto State. You might want to run for Senate. Have you considered?

No, I do not want to run for Senate. I want Nikki Haley to just appoint me to Senate. That's the great thing. People are asking me, are you going to run for Senate? And I'm like, no, why would you run?

She just gets to say, it's you. So yeah, I would love it. I'm honored by what you're implying and by the groundswell that I've felt. But obviously, that's something I have to take up with my family and my pastor before I decide whether to take that position. Is there another question, Senator?

Do you

think that Bill O'Reilly would be a better choice?

He's not from South Carolina. But he's a very talented man and I sincerely admire his broadcasting abilities.

But, you know, you're locked in a deathly battle.

With Bill right now? Yes. Oh, you mean over the book? Over the book, exactly. Bill's got a book out called, Killing Kennedy.

And I admire his obsession with terrible things happening to presidents. He's got, killing Lincoln, killing Kennedy, sodomizing Coolidge. That's a kid's book. And on, he was on Jon Stewart's show, and he said his next book's going to be called Killing Colbert. And it broke my character's heart so much to hear him say, hear Papa Bear say that.

So we launched Operation Killing, killing Kennedy, where I'm just telling my audience out there, I'm not telling you to buy my book. I don't want to abuse the relationship. But I'm just reminding them, if you're going to buy my book, and you are, if you're going to buy my book, just do it all in 1 week so we can leapfrog at least 1 of his killing books.

Which week do you want us to all buy your book?

Right now. As we speak. Right now. This week. Right now.

Go right now and go to a local bookstore, a small bookstore, a big bookstore, online. Your

book is on Google Play.

What does that mean?

It's our online store. We're going to end up being your best. You're going to end up being. Really? Yes.

So

go to Google Play. Absolutely. And what happens there? People are going to pay you lots of money to buy your book? Well, then it's a wonderful service.

Excellent.

So you go there and you click on it. It's like going to like, it's like that 1 that's named after a rainforest. You go to that 1. Yes. You click on it and you get it?

Yes. It's the competitor to the rainforest. I don't. And furthermore, it's- Good, because we

got to preserve that rainforest. We got to stop making books out of that rainforest. Do you get a physical book from you guys, or is it all the e-book thing?

It's an e-book thing.

It's only e-book.

That's right. You get a physical book, too. We'll sell you 1 of those. You will? Yeah, we'll get it through your publisher.

Good. At list price, no less.

What? At less price?

At list price.

At list price. At list price? So, go to Google Plus for no deal. If you're willing to pay less, which you should, because if you pay less price, they include more book. I'm not going to give any of this stuff away for free.

I want to explore some of the origin, and I should not turn this into an Android commercial. Go ahead. But Android is now 5

times the operating system that we sell.

And Android is 5 times larger than the iPhone.

I know. I know.

And Google Play runs on that. So people will actually be reading your book on the most popular operating system.

Then it's going to make my book better.

Absolutely. OK. Which is why we support

it. Great.

Good. Let's try. I have a Google tablet.

I have a Google tablet. I have that little Google tablet. It's got kind of like that slightly pebbled finish

and everything. It's phenomenally successful.

Can I make a suggestion?

Yes. Can I

add an external volume thing on it? Yeah. Because you've got to actually go into like a screen to do the volume of external.

That would cost extra.

Made of money. Okay. After this thing? After this thing?

I want to explore the antecedent, the precedence that brought you to this view of American exceptionalism. And I want to understand why A Man for all seasons is your most favorite book?

Well, it's a play. But I enjoy, but the book form of it is actually 1 of my favorite things to read. The introduction to A Man for All Seasons, which is by Robert Bolton. If you've never seen it, it's the story of Sir Thomas Moore, or St. Thomas Moore, if you're Catholic.

And I'm a Catholic. And it's the story of the man who was a friend of the king, King Henry VIII. And he was made chancellor of England. And Henry wanted to get rid of his wife, be done with Catherine, and get Anne Boleyn in there. And Thomas More wouldn't put his hand on a little black book, raise his hand, and say, I agree with the king.

He just stayed silent, wouldn't say anything. And Henry chopped his head off. HENRY FAULKNER

JR.: We saw this in the Tudors. RANDALL KENNEDY

JR.: Oh, yeah. It's a little different in the play, but less of this in the Robert Bolt version. I really like it because it's the story about, essentially, is there any part of you, as Moore says, is there any part of you that is not your appetites?

Is there any part of you that is not

your appetites? Is there any part of you that is not your fears and not your desires? In other words, is there any part of you that doesn't want or reject? Is there any part of you that is just you and from which you cannot retreat? And I really like, when I first started doing the show, I asked, especially the people who were at the head of my show, for instance, Alison Silverman, who was my original executive.

No, she was my first head writer. I said, I'd love you to read this essay. Because certainly during the Bush administration, there was no criticism of President Bush when he first started. We tried to fix that.

And- Yes, I'm going to come back to that. What? I'm going to come

back to that. Okay. So, and there were so many people who were afraid to be critical of the government at all because you could be called anti-American. And I love the play, because in this example, he loves the king but can't agree with him in the same way that someone could love their country but not agree with them. And Can you bring yourself to swim against the tide of all your fellows?

Can you keep yourself with your own opinions and your own ethics and your own morals regardless of the tide of the times? And the Bush administration was, So many people got swept in the wrong direction, I think.

And what was interesting was that I was in the audience when you gave the speech at the Correspondents' Dinner.

Oh, you were there?

Yes. OK. You know, I have nothing else to

do. Right.

So I was sitting there, And I was shocked that they were foolish enough to invite you. Because you were so good. And I think that performance sort of put you from sort of a specialized sort of service to a truly national figure. That's my opinion. I think it literally changed the perception of you in society.

I went from boutique to chain store at that point, I guess.

It was like a step function. What's a step function? It's a big jump.

Oh, OK, sure.

It's a mathematical term.

Like the number line? Like the number line? Is that what we mean by math?

Yeah, it's what we do.

Number line, I got the number line.

So it's like a really big discontinuous jump. And why do you think they invited you? Did they know what they were getting themselves into?

They're coming for me. I've been waiting. I've been waiting. I did peer through the blinds for a couple weeks after that show. I got invited really early.

The show started on October

17, 2005.

And...

All right. So this building was used by the Port Authority to bring buses up and down. And those are the bus elevators. So there's a truck about to come in and destroy us all. That's the back, it's backing up.

That's the backing up.

Well, I'm, I'm glad to be here with you at the end,

Eric Schmidt. I thought the end was on December 21st.

Oh, I, you probably, yeah, probably, yeah, yeah, though I've, yeah, probably.

No need to plan, No need to plan for anything on December 22nd in the Mayan calendar. Getting me back to President Bush, who we've conveniently forgotten.

Well, I was invited by the press, actually. For the Correspondence Center, you were invited by whoever's the head of the White House Press Corps that year. And it was a guy named, I think, Mark Smith was a guy from the AP, I think. And he invited me. And we were only a few months into the show.

We started in October 17, 2005. And it was January, I think, or early February when I got the invitation. And I said to my agent, James Dixon, I said, let me call him back. Let me call him back. And I said, I think I want to do this.

Let me call him back. And I called Jon Stewart immediately and I said, Hey, Jon, I got invited down to the correspondence dinner. What do you think? What do you think? And he goes, to be a guest?

What do you mean? And I said, no, they want me to be the guy. And he goes, what? Have they ever seen your show? And I said, I don't know.

I said, I'm not going to ask. And I said, I think I kind of got to do it. And he goes, you got to do it. And then we were really worried that we wouldn't. I knew I'd never get this opportunity again.

Like no one's ever going to ask me back. But about 2 weeks out, we started working on it about a month out. And the very first joke we wrote, the very first joke we wrote for it was, people say that this administration is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. That is wrong. They are not sinking.

They are soaring. If anything, they're rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg. And to me, that was the spirit of the entire thing. Like, how positive could we be? While they knife them.

And the press, too. And the press, too, of course. Because people forget that half of it, like we did 10 minutes on the administration, 10 minutes on the press. But anyway, a couple, about 3 days before I went down there, we'd been working. We do 161 shows a year.

And we pull very long, very long weeks. Like I was saying before, 65, 70 hour weeks. And we were super tired. You guys know what that's like, I'm sure. And I go in, I get my coffee from a very nice woman who is from Algeria.

And I walked into her coffee shop right before I went down there. And she goes, oh, babies, you're so tired. What's wrong? And this is my Algerian accent. And I said, well, I told her what I was working on.

She goes, you performing for the president? I said, yes. And she goes, he's going to be 5 feet away from me the whole time. And she said, but you are a critic. You are a critic.

And I said, yes, but I get to do my jokes just right at him. And she leaned across. She's a little lady. She's very cute. And she leans across the counter, and she took my chin in her hand.

And she said, it's a good country.

And I

said, yeah, it sure is. And I told that story to the president. Because there's a party before the correspondence dinner That's really great. It's you, some cabinet members, heads of several press organizations, and the president, and my family was there. My mother loved President Bush.

And he couldn't have been nicer to my mom. It was really a charming party. And I told him that story. And he goes, because he goes, it's nice we can do this. And I told him the story.

And he goes, only in America.

And it was

a very positive kind of vibe that lasted for about another hour. It was fun. It was a really

fun night. But from that point, something happened in America. You and Jon Stewart actually became the major political operatives, whether you like it or not. I don't. Well, trust me.

Because I'm a comedian. I'm not a political operative. I make jokes about the news. A lot of the news is about politics. That's not my fault.

Do you

know what I mean? Political operative means that you have some game beyond what you're doing. Politics itself means I'm not telling you my intention. I am showing you an action that is causing a reaction from you while I'm playing another chess piece over here. And together, I will triangulate some secretive way where I will achieve power over you.

Political action is class against class. I'm not trying to get power over anybody. That's why I don't like the idea of political actor in any way. I'm making jokes. I'm trying to make you laugh about something that I care about, about something I care about.

The fact

of the matter is that the trusted organizations of our society have been replaced by you and John. Bullshit. And I'll tell you why. No, no, I'll

tell you why.

I'll tell you why.

Because if that was true, they wouldn't know. Come on. Come on. That's lovely. That's lovely.

But people have asked me this before. And I don't think that's true. Because if that was the case, people wouldn't get my jokes. Because I'm not explaining that much to you. First of all, you have to know what I'm referencing to understand half of my joke.

And 2, I don't explain the news story that well to you. People come to me with knowledge. They might enjoy watching the show more than they enjoy watching straight news, but they had to have gotten news someplace else before they get to me, or else they wouldn't care. But independent of

whether I'm right or you're right, the fact of the matter is.

No, no, I'm right. It matters who's right, I think. It matters who's right. Because this is what's wrong with news. They say, independent of who's right, let's talk about something.

Someone's right. I'm saying you're the problem, Eric Schmidt. That's what I just said.

Let's agree that there's an issue between you now and sort of the Washington establishment. Because you have enormous reach.

I've got to be careful where I point this thing, is what you're saying. Because it's loaded.

JOHN SCALZIOTTI CHRISTIE WIGGINS Yeah. Wag the finger.

Yeah. Wag the finger.

Yeah. Exactly. And so do you think it's you and Washington sort of oil and water? How do you think it plays out? Man, they

don't seem to like it when I go down there. They're never that thrilled when I show up. So I don't know if we're oil and water. But it's not my world. I don't have any desire to have political power.

I don't have any desire. People thought John and I were doing that rally to be players and to, you know, what are they, what was it we were accused of? Trying to actuate the youth vote. And to take, like to drive people to the polls to win for the Democrats. And we've got this power.

How will we exercise this political vote gun that we've got with a quarter million people on the mall and all this attention. And it just reminded me of, I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan, as people sometimes know. And there's a great moment in the Lord of the Rings where If there's somebody here who doesn't know the plot, they've got a ring. They're trying to destroy it to get rid of Saren. Some people, I mean, listen, 10 years ago, people were going, oh yeah, what's that story about?

And oh, no, no, this is important. There's a meeting right before, you know, there's a meeting toward the end of it. Gandalf says to everybody here, everybody in the meeting, it's Aragorn and some other people, and he goes, listen, our only hope, our only hope for Frodo and Sam to succeed is that Sauron cannot imagine anyone would want to destroy the ring, he can't imagine. We don't want this power. And when people kept on saying, what's their intention with this rally?

It's like, we're just Frodo and Sam. You know, Washington is Mordor. We're trying to throw the ring of divisiveness into the fires

of Mount Maul. So, why can't we just sort of fly the great eagles into, why can't they just fly Frodo into Mordor and throw the ring in? Yeah. Solve his problem?

Because he would be, they'd see him coming and the Nazgul have flying steeds.

I don't think DC has any Nazguls.

Oh, 0, you're back to the metaphor. I thought you were talking about something important, the Lord of the Rings.

Why don't we continue?

What do you think of my little metaphor there?

I think your metaphor is fantastic.

Thank you. Thank you. You're very smart, man.

I want to continue.

Thanks to you, we got a great shot of the mall with all the people on it. You helped us out with that map image.

Beautiful. Google Maps are phenomenal. Ask an Apple user. I don't know. Let's try.

I want to ask. Now, things are going really well. In this interview right now? No. No.

In Google. And I wanted to ask for the benefit of our employees, tell us more about the Colbert Platinum. Colbert Platinum? Yes.

Colbert Platinum is a rare opportunity to upgrade your membership to the nation. OK.

OK.

You get all the, it's actually, it upgrades your citizenship in the United States.

OK.

Gets you into all the finest things that I can't even tell you about because you're not in the platinum yet. You know how rich people have better things than other people? Like that.

Okay. Yeah. How do these prospective members join?

Working for Google's a good start. The platinum is actually a piece we do on the show, Colbert Platinum, about the platinum lifestyle. About Now

you tell everyone to turn off their televisions and listen. If you're not a platinum member

of the nation, this is not for you. So we tell them to go off and go drink their store brand sodas and come back to us later. Which is good for them. I understand. It's good for them.

They just need the carbonation. But we stopped doing Colbert Platinum, actually, because the economy got so bad that we actually felt it bumming out the audience. So for a while, we changed it from like, you know, starting 2009, we stopped doing Colbert Platinum, because it really was bumming out people. And also, they're like high end things were being bought, like personal submarines and stuff like that. So, we changed it for a while.

We changed it to Colbert aluminum. And then, now we just don't do it at all. We'll relaunch it again sometime.

I cannot wait. Now, are you going to have a whole year of Hobbit stories?

No, we did a week. I know, you did a week. We did a week of it. And I kind of maxed out. And we've got to leave Middle Earth and come back to America

in the new year. And so in this doctrine of American exceptionalism, which is I think what the book is actually about.

That first chapter is the thesis statement, American exceptionalism. Rules don't apply to us.

So if that's true, how does America become great if the rules don't apply to us?

By the book. Every chapter tells us how to return to what we already know is the right thing, is to reject socialism, reject collectivism, and go with the gut. We even have a chapter just on food. Why America is the crispest, crunchiest, most corn-fed nation on Earth. And if you are what you eat, then we are all just stick a, you know, put a stick up our butt and we're all corn dogs walking around.

In preparing for this book, did you study the amendments to the Constitution and did you have any opinions about the amendments?

I always have opinions about the amendments to the Constitution. I mean, everybody's got their top, like what their top

10 amendments are. Do you have like a top 1

you like? My number 1 would probably be the Second Amendment. And My number 2 would probably be the First Amendment. And then probably my third would be the seventh. My fourth would be the 10th, fifth.

We've been ninth, sixth, it would be the eighth.

Is everybody writing this down?

Yeah, get this down, because I don't have a rationale behind it. So I won't remember.

I'm waiting for you to think some more about the amendments, what they stand for. American exceptionalism. Sure.

I have nothing more to say, Eric Schmidt. No, but there's nothing about the Constitution in the book.

But the book allows this book to be, the Constitution allows this book to be, it's free speech?

Sure, no, no, no, yeah, well, the Constitution,

the Second

Amendment of The Second Amendment allows this book to exist. Because if anybody stopped me from publishing this book, I would shoot them in the face. Do you understand me? Understand me?

Are we clear? That's very, very clear.

It does. The Second Amendment guarantees all other liberties.

I think it's time to start getting some questions from our audience.

That'd be

great. Who would like to ask a question? We have a microphone right here, and we have a microphone right over here.

I like these moments of silence.

I've got 1 for you. I'm curious to know, when's the last time you had to audition for something? And how did it go?

Well, I'll tell you, the first time I didn't have to audition for something was for Law and Order, Criminal Intent. I played a forger who lives with his mother, who's sort of a psycho who kills people through the mail with lie bombs. And I didn't have to audition because they said, we wrote it with you in mind. It's been a while. I mean, boy, I paid my dues, though.

I auditioned for a long. I don't know. I mean, I've auditioned for movies, I guess. But I just, I've been doing my show for 7 years. I don't think I've auditioned for anything since I've done my show because I don't have time to hypothetically do something.

Do you know what I mean? I either have to do my show, or if you'd like me to do something, I can try to make time for it if it still sounds like it's going to be fun or challenging or something like that. But 7 years, 8 years, something like that? Yeah. I don't mind auditioning.

I really don't. Because if I was on the other side I would definitely want to know whether the guy could do it. I don't want to hire somebody because they're famous or really handsome. Yes.

I have a question over here. Meanwhile, I'll ask you, How do you think Google can become the greatness that we never weren't?

It kind of already is because it, and I'm not trying to blow secondhand smoke up your butt. Google can be anything you want it to be. Because it's a reflection of your own desire. It's a portal toward what you want it to be. Unless you guys are putting some restrictors on the information that I think I'm getting, then it is anything we want it to be.

Because it's an actuator or it's a pathway to what we want rather than the thing we want itself. Do you know what I mean? So It's the finger that allows us to look at the moon.

Good. We'll take that. You know what

I mean? Like, don't look at

my finger. You'll miss out on all that. Everyone understood that's a strategic inevitable.

Go ahead. Hi. This was a few

years ago, but what actually happened between you and the Adventure Brothers guys? Is there bad blood there or was there a miscommunication?

No, I can't do my show. I can't do my show and do that. That's all. I also had to quit Harvey Birdman, too. I just couldn't do my show and do the voiceovers because I think both shows, I think the Adventure Brothers is great and I loved doing Harvey Birdman, But they had to wait for me too much.

Do you know what I mean? I eventually couldn't do any of it anymore. And I loved when I had to quit Harvey Birdman, I played a guy named Phil Ken Seban and a guy named Reducto. And Phil Ken Seban would say things like, ha ha, bubbly parts. And when both of them died on 1 show, they were both hit by a bus on the same corner at different parts of the same cartoon by the same bus.

And if you freeze the frame at the moment that I get hit, my characters get hit, on the side of the bus it says, watch the Colbert Report, 1130s, at Comedy Central. But those are both, no, there's no bad blood. I think they're both great.

AUDIENCE MEMBER 3 Thanks. We have some employees have submitted questions online. Here's 1 that I'm not quite sure how to interpret, so I'll just read it to you. Sure. Would you rather fight 1 horse-sized duck or 1 duck-sized horse?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. 100

duck-sized horses, I would say.

100

duck-sized horses.

Okay. You heard it here first. That's a clear answer.

That's a clear answer. Did I win? Is there a right answer there?

I'm sure There is. How about you? What would you rather do? I would pick the opposite.

You would? A horse-sized duck? Are you insane? I mean, it's not a sharp beak, but 1 blow. The thing's got to weigh like 1, 200 pounds.

Whereas duck-sized horses, you could just snap their spines as they came at you. What I don't understand is why are we fighting them? They're both. Wait a second. I know why I'm right.

I know why I'm right. Because horses are vegetarian. And ducks are carnivores. The duck would come at you, and the horses essentially would leave you alone unless your pockets were filled with hay. Which they are not.

Which they are not, as far as we know.

OK, that's a very clear answer. Yes, ma'am.

Can you recall a time that you were struck speechless?

Yes. Several, but the 1 that leaps to mind immediately was when I had Jane Fonda on the show. And without preamble, She got up, sat on my lap, and stuck her tongue in my ear. And I was rigid. I didn't know what to do.

And I felt like, and I was old enough to remember Johnny Carson, There was the famous time where a spider monkey crawled on top of his head. He was having like a Jack Hanna on, and a spider monkey jumped on his head. And I thought, Jane Fonda is my spider monkey. I don't know what to do with myself.

Googlers have continued to suggest important questions as a follow up to the duck vs. Horse debate.

Oh really? Yes. Here's the next 1. As a follow up? Yes.

From my answer on a piece of paper? They're literally, Google's that good that they're actually transmitting onto a piece of paper right now? Why are you withholding that technology from the rest of us? We really are. Wow.

What are your plans for welcoming the royal baby? This is the question. I'm sorry. Any suggestions on what the baby should be named?

Stephen Colbert's got a nice ring to it, obviously. Charles, Philip, Arthur, George. George, Philip, Arthur, Charles. Arthur, Philip, Charles, George. All 4?

All, any 1 of those. In whatever order? Sure. Sure. There's an infinite number of 4 names.

There are,

well, 2 to the fourth.

Yeah, whatever.

2 to

the fourth. Like 16 or something. 2 to the fourth. What is it?

4 times 3 times 2. Something like that.

Whatever. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Again, the number line.

The number line. That's what I liked when I was a kid. No matter what class you were in, whether you were in first grade or if you were in calculus, the book starts with the number line. First page is, let's remind ourselves what integers are.

Another Googler has asked.

That was the middle of a sentence. OK.

Another Googler has asked.

You people have to put up with this. I'm so sorry.

Power mad is what I would describe you. Googlers have asked, How would you efficiently determine if a tree is balanced? What is the run time of your algorithm? For your benefit, if

a tree is balanced, if a tree is balanced, if you can hang ornaments on any part of it.

This is a very good idea. Did you have a question? Yes, go ahead.

What is the difference between Stephen Colbert, the person, and Stephen Colbert, the character? And what were the challenges in you becoming Stephen Colbert, the character?

There are a lot of differences, I hope, between me and my character. I mean, there's some things we have in common. We're both from South Carolina. We're both fans of Tolkien's work. Though I tried to keep that separate at first.

I tried to keep that membrane at first. I was like, no, no, no. I don't want that. That's too important to me. I don't want him to have that.

But there were too many opportunities for me to wax about it. So I went ahead and let that membrane be permeable. But we're both super Catholics. He thinks he's like Captain Catholic. I still go to church.

And I happen to know I'm a fairly, I'm not particularly pious or devout Catholic, though I still go. He's a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high status idiot. And I'd like to think I'm well-intentioned. I'm better informed than he is. He is completely incurious about the world.

He is living an unexamined life. And that's fine with him. He's high status. I really enjoy being low status. I really enjoy playing a weak character.

That's why I really enjoy him, is that he is this unbelievably self-important character. In fact, Jim Fanhagen, who designed the Republican set this year, and he does the Olympics, he's a huge set designer, and he's a wonderful guy and old friend of mine. I said to him when he was designing my first set, I said, I want your inspiration to be Da Vinci's Last Supper. I said, because if you look at Da Vinci's Last Supper, Christ has no halo. Existence, all of creation is his halo, because there are all these converging lines in the room and in reality that converge upon Christ's head.

As all of the world is God's footstool, as it says in Matthew, the world is Christ's halo. And so I said, I want my whole set to be like a halo around me. So if you look at my original set, there are these convergent lines that come in my set. And we painted it on the floor so I could be, I am the rising sun. There are no television monitors behind me.

I'm not like what Brian Williams or even John said. He's got television monitors behind him. And he's conveying the news to you. He's a conduit. I am the news.

I am a dawn into my own day. But that's the outward status of the character. But his weakness and his incuriousness and his thin-skinned quality weakens in such wonderful ways. I love that weakness, because I think that's the reality of me. I think I'm actually not as well-defined as he is.

And I enjoy copying to that in my own behavior.

What's interesting about it, I think there is union in your character and you personally. You're very supportive of the troops. And I remember when you were in Iraq, you got the president to order you to get a haircut. Pretty serious.

That was fun. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I knew I wanted to have my head shaved, because I thought, oh, that'll feel good in the room. That'll feel good with all the troops.

And I said, who could shave my head? The general. Well, who's going to make the general do it? The president. And everybody said yes.

It was really lovely.

And I think the support that you're doing with the troops is fantastic. Was there some reason in growing up or something that you felt that way? Or is it just you're a genuine patriot about this stuff?

I don't know. I'm a genuine patriot. I love my country. And I think patriotism does not require focus on the troops. Do you know what I mean?

There are other ways to be patriotic other than association with the military. That being said, I think not enough attention is paid to the men and women who make the sacrifices that we have collectively decided they should make and then ignore. You know what I mean? We're all responsible. We all are sending the troop orders.

And we did it without a lot of thought, but with a lot of emotion 10, 11 years ago. And not a lot of discussion. And then we thought our job was done. And so because I talk about it a lot, or used to talk about it more when it was more in the consciousness, especially in the news consciousness, because my show is a shadow of the actual news. And I'm, in some ways, very reactive that way.

I felt at a certain point that I had a responsibility, along with my responsibility to be funny, to take opportunities that came to me to talk about the troops when I can. Early on, I have a 82nd Airborne flag in my office because very early on in the show, a young man and his wife came, and she had to speak for him because he had such bad brain damage. And he still could hear, but he couldn't really converse. And he enjoyed the show. And he gave me the flag.

And all he could really get out was, don't forget us. Please keep talking about us. So I've got it on my wall. And I think about it. And we don't nearly do enough.

And we don't help as much as we should. But certainly when you have an opportunity that fits within the, I still have a responsibility to do a comedy show. When I can fit those 2 things together, we're more than happy to try to make it happen. And as I said, we should do more.

We still have 100, 000 troops in Afghanistan.

Right. You know, right. We went to Iraq and I'd love to be able to do something in Afghanistan, too. And sadly, I think I might have the time to. Go ahead.

So a few years back, you suffered a terrible work-related injury at your wrist. So my question to you is, do you plan to expand to other body parts because, you know, like ankles, legs?

Anything that shatters, I will call attention to.

Thank you.

Anything that happens to me, that's the nice thing about the character. And 1 of the things that saves me when there's down time in the news, is that anything I think is worth talking about is news. That's the character, I can name it. Anything that happens to me is the most important thing that's happening right now. And when I broke my wrist, sad to say, the first thing I thought of is, content.

So I have a follow-up question. How is your auditioning of Eric Schmidt going right now? And do you plan on taking Eric on your book tour?

He's doing very well. Thank you. Doing very well. Do you have an up-tempo or a ballad?

Oh my God.

I really can't stay.

Maybe it's cold outside.

Okay, Go ahead.

Hit it. I learned how to dance with Psy. That was enough. You did? Yes.

Wow. I was really bad. So is he. Come on, he's the number 1 cultural phenomenon. And if it's popular, it must be good.

Absolutely. Speaking of which, again, many Googlers have been asking questions about your upcoming YouTube show.

Yeah, what is that? I have an upcoming YouTube show?

Yes, we have all decided that you have to have a YouTube show of some kind. OK,

does that violate my contract with Viacom to have that? Because You guys had a billion dollar lawsuit against each other, you realize. And Sumner Redstone would rather see your head on

a stick. You actually asked us to, you actually asked us on television to give you the money. You forget.

Oh no, I don't forget. You never gave it to me. I know. I know. If you gave the money, I'd be knee deep in hookers and blow and I'd forget.

No, no. You know, I was deposed. I was deposed for that lawsuit. I know you were. And I've got a good story if you'd stop talking.

I'm sorry, what was your question?

Tell your story?

OK. OK. So it's been a few years. I don't think I'm violating it. So I got deposed for the YouTube Google thing, the Viacom thing, because, boy, they were mad at you guys.

They were so mad at you guys. And so y'all's lawyer brought me in to say, well, how isn't YouTube great? And wouldn't you not have a show if it wasn't for YouTube? And all those kind of questions. And the lawyer for Google would read me statements that I said on air.

And I said, well, I didn't say that. And he goes, no, you said it. You said it on this broadcast. I said, no, my character said that. And my character's not under oath right now.

And they said, well, if your character were here, What would he say? And so I would say, OK, well, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. If you ask me questions that my character has to answer as opposed to me, I'll move my coffee cup to the other side of my place here. And then you'll know I'm speaking as my character.

And so if they'd ask me a question, I'd keep my cup over here, and then in the middle of the question, I'd start moving it over to the side. Because I realized they were asking me something for my character. And the person would go, let the record reflect that the coffee cup is now on the left side of Mr. Cooper. And I would say, my character's answer was always like, I don't know what you're talking about, buddy.

Yes, ma'am.

I was just wondering if you have anything left on your career wish list.

Sure. I never know what's going to happen even tomorrow. I just got to spend the week with some of my favorite creative artists with the Hobbit. It was unbelievable. What a workshop.

Made it my own Hobbit feat. Next week, I get to sing with all these wonderful artists doing Christmas carols. I've done my own Christmas special. I've had a rally on the mall. I've testified before Congress.

I may or may not appear in The Hobbit. I get to the nice thing about my show, and whether or not I do the show forever, I mean everything ends, but whether or not I do the show forever, the nice thing about my show is that as the host and executive producer, I get to ask of myself anything I want to try. But that also means I have to do everything I know. And so it's just this tremendous sort of refreshing gift, as tiring as the show sort of is, because I am kind of decaying before your eyes. It's in the same way, it's also rejuvenating.

Because the show is only what I want it to be. I can always say no to myself or ask myself something new. But beyond this, I just want to work with people I like. I love the people I work with. I love what we do.

And I just want to be able to do it with joy. And the moment I can't do that, I have got to stop and try to do something else.

There are times when you've taken your persona outside of the show itself, like when you ran for president or started your super PAC. And I was just curious, how did you get the idea to do that or why did you decide to start taking the character outside of the show itself?

Well, he thinks he belongs everywhere. You know what I mean? He thinks he belongs everywhere.

So did he make the decision, or did you?

You know what? That sounds like 1

of those Google. My ego is

just big enough that I'd like to think I'm in the driver's seat. But

I'm not entirely sure. That sounds like 1 of those Google lawyer questions. Are you a Google lawyer?

No, I'm an engineer.

Ah, you're the worst. Very precise.

I like doing, I like putting him in situations, Because he thinks he belongs everywhere, anywhere he goes, as long as we can prepare for the situation. I rarely take him. Like, I do talk shows like right now, or if I go on Dave, or I do any news talk shows or anything like that, or even the book tour, any place I would do it, I'm only myself. I could lapse into him or the way he might behave at times. But out of context, he clangs against the world.

And I have to be prepared for that clang. And so I'm very prepared for the Correspondents' Center. We're very prepared for the rally in the mall. I'm very prepared to go to Iraq. I'm very prepared to testify before Congress.

I'm very prepared to give a testimony any place, appear before the FEC or give a speech to supporters on the streets of Washington, DC. That's a lot of preparation goes into that. And I like it because I like changing the context of a space. I like changing the context of a supposedly not performance space into a performance space and to see, well, here, that's what I like to do. I like to think of the character as a pebble that I can throw into the news and then report on my own ripples.

Because, you know, Jon Stewart, and I've said this before, but Jon Stewart has characterized what he does is like sitting at the back of America's classroom and shooting spitballs. I am the spitball. And I like to shoot myself into it and see what it looks like when I'm in a news story. For instance, you know, appointed Senator of South Carolina. That's interesting.

I didn't intend that. And usually the best ones, I didn't actuate. They were, I didn't push. They were invitations. I didn't say I want to testify before Congress.

They asked me. And I said, you know, this is going to be a terrible idea. And they said, we want you to come anyway. And I said, all right. In the same way, yesterday I was just walking around, nothing happening.

And suddenly there was a horse underneath me, and it was me being senator from South Carolina. And I thought, how delightful. How delightful that we've planted all these seeds of political activism in my own state. And it is a reasonable, ridiculous thing to surmise that I might get the job. But when you put yourself in the story, and I put this character, this very false character into a story, anything that looks like me in that story is probably bullshit.

And that's a specific way of doing satire. It's satire by comparison rather than satire by deconstruction, if you can understand the difference there. I'm falsely constructing the satire as opposed to deconstructing other people's behavior.

We have 2 more questions. I have a question.

I really enjoyed this before we got to this. This has been lovely.

You haven't heard the last 2 questions. Now, I'm concerned about end of year timing.

End of year timing.

End of year timing, because we've got next week, sorry, this week is the week we need to buy this book en masse, globally, everyone.

Yeah, this is the first week that you need to

do it. The first week.

Yeah. Okay.

Then we have December 21st, which is the end of the world, which is the Mayan calendar date. Yeah, do we know how that's happening? You'll have to do some research on Google on this. And perhaps we can look it up while we're chatting. And then we have the fiscal cliff, which Washington is obsessed about.

So do you have any comments on the fiscal cliff and its timing after your book and after the Mayan end?

I'd rather the world come to an end than talk about marginal tax rates.

We've got,

We've got a pretty darn good fiscal cliff script. The first time, when it came back from Thanksgiving, was the first show. I think that first show after Thanksgiving was the first show that I thought, oh, this is the first show after the election. Because after the election, up to Thanksgiving, you're just sweeping up shrapnel from the election, emotional and sort of political shrapnel from it. And then the first show back, we knew the fiscal cliff was a big thing.

We did a piece. It was a perfectly fine first act piece. We had a guest. We had Rand Salaam on the show to talk about Republicans capitulating to taxes. And right after that, we wrote another really nice fiscal cliff piece that I keep waiting to be out of date.

But the ball just won't move that much. I mean, Obama can submit his thing. The Republicans can submit their thing. But the story is still the same. The story is about you go first, you go first.

1 side could try to hide from the other.

What did you say?

1 side could try to hide from the other.

And then someone has to yell, alley, alley, oxen free? Yes? So no, I'm actually so avoiding talking about the fiscal cliff that I actually did a week on The Hobbit.

We'll have you have the honor of the last question.

Do you need a writer in that case?

I guess that's what I should ask.

Why did comedy kind of become your thing, do you think?

Or did comedy kind of

pick you?

Well, that's a nice way of putting it. That's a nice way of putting it. I would say that I can't under-emphasize how important comedy's been to my life and how important certain opportunities that came along to my life. And many of them seem sort of accidental. For instance, like Second City.

I never thought of myself. I didn't think I was going to be a comedian. I had a sort of secret desire as a high schooler to be a comedian. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know.

I just really liked being funny. I'm from 1 of 11 kids, and we're a funny family. And being funny is important. The king of the room was whoever was funniest. And I remember as a child, seeing comedy help my family.

I had a tragedy when I was younger. My father and 2 of my brothers died. And I remember my sister making another 1 of my sisters laugh so hard on the way, on the car away from the cemetery. 1 of my sisters made the other sister laugh so hard that she fell on the floor of the limo, 1 of those big floors with a rumble seat facing each other. And she fell on the floor laughing.

And I remember thinking, I want to do that. And I don't know whether it was specifically in the context of dealing with tragedy, because I don't think I was always on a 10. But I remember specifically thinking, oh, I want that. I'd love to have been able to do that right now. And then I fell asleep every night for years listening to Bill Cosby, Wonderfulness, Very Funny Fellow, David Frye, Richard Nixon, The Fantasy, George Carlin, Class Clown, Let's Get Small, Wild and Crazy Guy.

And I would just, back when you could stack albums, so many stacks on many of them, the top 1 kind of played slow as it went around. And then I went to college to be an actor, but an actor-actor. I wore black and I had a beard and, you know, I was like, let me share my misery with you, You know, poet slash jerk kind of actor. And then I accidentally met some people from Second City and took some classes there and got invited to audition. And accidentally, just sort of a happy accident, fell in with some great people.

And I still would like quit Second City 4 times in order to go do straight black box avant garde kind of theater in Chicago, which is that's what I was going to be. I was going to live in a studio apartment with no furniture and a futon on the floor that I stuffed myself with yak fur and just dreamed to be single and with a beard and sandals and a tshiki. And I was going to drink from a Samovar that was constantly bubbling in the background. But then 1 day, I was backstage. I kept on returning to doing comedy.

And I was backstage 1 night. And this is really the thing that made the decision for me. I was backstage with a guy named Dave Rozowski, who does a, what's it called, a web, what's it belong, what's it audio? It does a podcast. It's a great podcast, yeah.

What do you kids do, your podcasts? Great guy. We're backstage. Somebody was on stage, and they were supposed to do a very simple blackout. And a blackout is a very short, it's got 1 joke, And then the lights go out.

This is Second City. It's a pace keeper for the show. She goes out there, and the blackout is this. She goes, you're supposed to say, I'd like to do a song for you now. Welcome to the no exit cafe.

I'd like to do a song for you right now. A song for the whales. And then you tune up your guitar for a long time. This is a song for the whales. And then you go, pshh.

Eek! It's very simple. You do whistling clicks and everything. It's fine. Not a great laugh, but it works every time.

She goes out there to do it. I'd like to do a song for you right now. I'd like to do a song for you right now. She goes into her whistling and her clicking. And we're backstage waiting to go on for the next scene, me and Dave.

And We said, we're not getting any laughs. This is foolproof. No laughs at all. What's going on? Something's wrong.

And then she goes, oh, I forgot. It's song for whales. And we burst into laughter backstage. And we threw our arms around each other in the agony of her failure. And we're just laughing.

We fell like a collapsing teepee. We just fell to the ground. And Dave's feet went out onto stage like this as we held each other like lovers. The most intimate, joyful experience at her pain that we all knew. And she could hear it happening.

The audience could see our feet. And she started laughing at how wonderfully she had just failed. And I thought at that moment, this is what I want. If failure of this scale can cause this much joy for anyone, then this is the healthiest thing that I could do with the rest of my life. And I will do nothing else.

And I've never looked back from that moment.

Thank you very much. So. So, Stephen, I think what you see is that it really takes a brilliant man to produce this character. And what I like about this is we get a sense of who you really are, and we get some extra specialty.

Well, it's nice of you to say.

And thank you very much for coming to Google. Now, we've got 30, 000, 40, 000

employees. So I should sign all of them?

Let's just review what they have to do. This book needs to be the number 1 bestseller this week

and every week thereafter. Yes. Well, 1 week will do and we'll see what happens.

Until my book comes out anyway. Right? So our instructions are? Go get the book.

Buy the book. Don't even read it. That doesn't matter to me. I just have to leapfrog 1 of O'Reilly's bestsellers.

I actually read it, and it's phenomenal.

You are so perceptive. There's a reason why you're here.

I didn't quite get the 3D glasses thing, and so I didn't put them on right. But aside from that, it's a great book.

You didn't put 3D glasses on right? No, I didn't. You could run Google, but you don't understand 3D glasses technology.

We have much better glasses technology at Google. I understand.

Stephen Colbert, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank

you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.